Subterranean surveying is used to perform characterization of subterranean elements in a subterranean structure. Examples of subterranean elements of interest include hydrocarbon-bearing reservoirs, fresh water aquifers, gas injection zones, and other subterranean elements.
One type of subterranean surveying includes seismic surveying, in which seismic sources (e.g., air guns, vibrators, explosives, etc.), and seismic sensors (e.g., hydrophones, geophones, accelerometers, etc.) are deployed. The seismic sources are used to produce seismic waves that are propagated into the subterranean structure, with some of the seismic waves reflected from the subterranean elements of interest. The reflected seismic waves are detected by the seismic sensors.
Other types of subterranean surveying include electromagnetic (EM) surveying that uses EM (artificially created or naturally occurring) sources and EM sensors, gravity surveying that uses gravity sensors to make local gravity measurements of the earth which can lead to an indicator of the earth's density, and others. Other survey types include mixed source/receiver combinations, e.g., seismic sources with EM receivers or EM sources with seismic receivers.
The hardware for performing the various different subterranean surveys have tended to be custom designed for each specific type of measurement of interest (e.g., seismic measurement, EM measurement, or gravity measurement). As a result, conventional surveying solutions do not provide for an efficient manner of considering (acquiring and recording) different types of measurement data that may be available.